I am poisoned by the Internet. Poisoned by stupid online politics . Poisoned through and through. Even though I’m afflicted with some type of irony detachment neurosis, the debate on Tuesday night was just too much nonsense, even for me. To call it a debate is ridiculous. This was nothing short of a septuagenarian slap-fight. 

Actually. That would have made more sense. I found myself constantly wishing that they would just devolve into barbaric geriatric violence. It would have been more logical to track it blow-by-blow as opposed to the alternative, and reality: screech-by-screech. 

I have judged middle school debates too many times to count, and I can say definitively that those little kids, with their procon.org points, clip on neckties, and frantic energy, make far more sense, and have a much better display of mental faculties overall, than the two “men” who are sparring for control of the country. I would rather have an anxious 11 year old who loses their homework more often than they turn it in with their hand on the big red button compared to these two miscreants-in-decay.

So what are the highlights? What should the voter and reader take away from this article?

I’m struggling with this question. Do I post my scattered, coffee stand and curse riddled notes? Do I pretend that nothing went wrong at the debate was just two normal dudes doing normal politics of the normal variety?

No, I don’t think I will do any of these. The kakistocracy has fundamentally failed. That’s what was proven by this irritating spectacle. Government by the wealthy for the wealthy will never serve working people, their interests, or their affectations and sensibilities. Democracy dies in darkness the Washington Post stream told me. I think it died a long time ago.

Democracy had a bright light shone on it at the debate, and in some critical sense this event was little more than an autopsy of people driven politics, in favor of a carnival of bickering nobodies.

Who won the debate? I don’t really know to be honest with you. I know everybody watching at home lost that night.

The screeching, hooting, shrieking banshees won.